Welcome to the Sixty-Fifth History Carnival! I'm your host, Jeremy Young, and we're honored to have you here with us.

When last we convened at this location, I showed you how a little history could be used to liven up a Senate committee meeting. Today, however, there are more pressing things on the political docket -- things like, for instance, the upcoming Presidential election. (Disclaimer: I'm an Obama supporter, but I've tried to make the ensuing text as nonpartisan as possible.) As everybody knows, there's a series of debates between the nominees coming up this fall. But while Presidential debates are certainly historic events, history itself isn't often discussed at these venues. At least, it hasn't been in the past. I'm betting that this year, that's going to change...

The Scene: A debate hall at a major (and unnamed) state university, somewhere in Middle America

Jim Lehrer: Greetings all, and welcome to today's debate. Without further ado, let's get to the opening statements. Gentlemen, you have two minutes apiece. Senator Obama, we flipped a coin last night, and then we got really drunk and woke up in an alley in Chicago, but we think we remember you won the coin toss.

Barack Obama: Thank you, Jim -- and I hope you're feeling better this evening. Now, I'm sure you're all expecting me to talk about the audacity of hope and all that stuff, but I'm going to make a little departure from my stump speech for a moment. See, I've been reading some really interesting things about history, and I think it's really relevant to this campaign.* For instance, I've been reading about John Burrow's A History of Histories in a post by Robert McHenry at Brittanica Blog, Whig History and Whig Biography. Robert has some interesting things to say about the inherent whiggishness of narrative history. If you don't see the relevance of that to the 2008 campaign, read Tom S. at Rustbelt Intellectual, who writes in an appreciation of the late Charles Tilly, Charles Tilly's Flight, that social science should be based on research and data rather than unsubstantiated theory. Social science and data are important parts of a president's job. Also, Larry Ferlazzo has an excellent post on The Best Websites for Teaching and Learning About World History. World history is really important for preparing yourself to lead America in her foreign affairs.

Obama: Sorry, Jim. Anyway, as I was saying, another relevant historical post is David Kaiser's at History Unfolding on Reason and Emotion. David argues that the Enlightenment ideal of reason has faded in American society in recent years. If I may be permitted an example, when Senator McCain here said "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran," he wasn't thinking rationally.

McCain: Thank you, Jim. I agree with my opponent that history's important, but I think it's Democrats who misread it more often than not. Take Senator Hillary Clinton, for example. Ahistoricality has written a post called Unspeakably Banal in which he berates Clinton for comparing outsourcing to the Holocaust -- on Holocaust Rememberance Day. And Arica Coleman writes at HNN in a post called Hillary Clinton and the Possessive Investment in Whiteness that Clinton's racism has roots in early American feminism.

Obama: John, don't you think it's a bit rude of you to attack a woman when she's not even here to defend herself? That reminds me of an excellent post in Law Matters on Domestic Violence in the Press a Century Ago, which relates some truly shocking incidents that should make any American ashamed.

McCain: Um, Barack, when you were running against Senator Clinton, you attacked her all the time.

Obama: Oh. Right. Nevermind.

Lehrer:(Clears throat) Thank you both very much. For our first question, I'd like to know what each of you plans to do about the Iraq War.

Obama: Jim, I'd like to know why nobody talks about the war in this country any more. It's been nearly forgotten, just like World War I. John Quiggin writes at Crooked Timber that WWI is The Great and Unremembered War. I called Iraq a dumb and rash war before it even started. Why doesn't anybody remember that?

But you know what, Jim? Nobody knows anything about any of these wars, because there's an Academic Jihad Against Military History. At least that's what Mark Safranski at Zenpundit says. So nobody wants to talk about those other wars. They're only interested in the Iraq War. I think that's dumb. Why is Iraq any better than those other wars?

McCain: You idiot! Those aren't real wars. You don't know anything about real wars because you've never been in the military. You're no better than Senator William Borah of Idaho, an ardent isolationist who supported Hitler! Kevin Murphy at Ghost in the Machine may have given Borah a sympathetic treatment in Great Borah's Ghost! but I know better.

Lehrer: Gentlemen, gentlemen! Next question, please. Senator McCain, what do you think the future holds for America?

McCain: Nothing good. America was once great, and then the Democrats came along and wrecked it all.

Obama: I'm too young to remember any of that. But I do recall what a terrible guy Richard Nixon was. Rick Perlstein does too, and he's recently written a book about it called Nixonland. At TPMCafe, Rick continues his discussion of Nixon and his relevance to present-day America in Taking the Adversary Seriously: History and Condescension.

McCain: I remember Nixon a lot differently from that. But you know, memory's an interesting topic too. Janice Liedl has a great post up about how Canadians and Americans go about Celebrating Discovery, and how our memories of European explorers four centuries ago are shaped by events today. And Heather Stein at Sybilla Oritur writes about modern remembrance of Queen Victoria in her post Victoria Day/Fete des Patriotes. The study of memory has an interesting history, too. Dave Munger at Cognitive Daily writes about The Origins of the Study of Memory and discusses the contributions of Hermann Ebbinghaus in the 1880's. In other news, my memory's not what it used to be.

Ralph Nader:(Appears from behind a post and punches Lehrer in the nose. A shocked Lehrer falls out of his chair, and Nader calmly sits down in it.) Yeah. Let's talk about murder!

McCain and Obama: But --

Nader: Murder's an important topic of conversation, and one not discussed nearly enough in Presidential debates. Maybe that's because they're always excluding me from those debates. Well, no longer! Now I'm here, and I'm going to talk about murder.

McCain and Obama: But --

Nader: Let's start with a fascinating post by L. H. Crawley at The Virtual Dime Museum about The Pulitzer Murder Case. Did you know that the grandson of Brigham Young was convicted of murder? You would have if you'd read this post, or if you'd let me in the debates. Or, apparently, if you'd hung out with a lot of journalists, a surprising number of whom seem to have been the last people to see assassination victims alive. At least that's the provocative argument made by Lisa Pease at Real History Blog in her post Journalists Who Are the Last to See Someone Alive.

Obama: Ralph. You can't do this. Here we were having a nice debate, full of potshots and platitudes, as all debates should be, and here you come charging in bringing up a depressing subject like murder. You need to leave right now.

Nader: Fascist! You're a fascist! All Democrats are fascists! Just like FDR. Alonzo Hamby at POTUS may argue convincingly in FDR Watch: The New Deal and Fascism that FDR wasn't a fascist, but I know better. Shame on you! All right, if you're not interested in murder, let's talk about something more interesting. Are you a Sampson man or a Schley man?

Obama: What?

McCain: No, I know what he's talking about. He's read a really interesting post by Elementary Historyteacher at History is Elementary, Fess Up! Are You a Sampson Man or a Schley Man? It's about a once-heated argument as to which of two men really won a naval battle in the Spanish-American War. I should know; I was in the Navy. Did I mention I'm a war hero?

But I've also got some interests you might not expect. For example, I'm very fond of the novels of Henry James, which is why I highly recommend a post by Caleb Crain at Steamboats are Ruining Everything entitled Impediments. Crain provides a nuanced explication of whether James' latent homosexuality is reflected in his novels, particularly Roderick Hudson. I'm also interested in 19th-century Australian cultural history, so I found Melissa Bellanta's post at The Vapour Trail, Brisbane Larrikins, absolutely fascinating. And finally, I wanted to let you know that I'm interested in --

(Lehrer finally gets his footing, and deals Nader such a rapping about the ears that the Green Party candidate falls out of his chair.)

Lehrer: Murder! Australian cultural history! Whaddaya think this is, a History Carnival or something? I've had enough of this. That's a wrap, fellas. Thanks for watching this debate; tune in for another one next month. (Under his breath) If we can get the candidates to behave, that is...

Obama: Did not!

McCain: Did too!

Nader:(Struggling to his feet) Fascists!

(Curtain falls)

Well, that's all for today, folks. If you're a member of today's cast, I'm very, very sorry about all this; otherwise, hope you enjoyed the show, and be sure to check out all the posts the "candidates" recommended!

The next History Carnival will be hosted by Jeremy Young at ProgressiveHistorians. (Looks over shoulder apprehensively) Oh, wait. That's me. How did I get dragged into this again?

Anyway, please submit your recommendations via e-mail or using the new, spiffed-up nomination form. See you all next time -- thanks to all who submitted recommendations!

*A terribly cheap trick, I know, but how else was I supposed to get some of these posts into the "debate" format?